UPDATE: 11:56 AM: The USA vs. Portugal World Cup match may have been a heartbreaking 2-2 tie, but it was a massive victory for both ESPN and Univision viewership-wise. The game is now the most watched U.S. soccer match ever with 18.22 million viewers. That tops the previous record of 17. 97 million who watched the U.S. beat China in the 1999 Women’s World Cup Final on ABC. Yesterday’s game peaked from 7:30 to 8 PM ET at 22.96 million – making it the most watched sporting event ever on ESPN except for NFL and college football games. Univision hit a viewership record too, with 6.5 million watching the game on the Spanish-language network yesterday — that’s the most viewers ever for a U.S. match on Univision.

PREVIOUS,7:15 AM: ESPN’s broadcast of USA Team’s 2-2 tie against Portugal on Sunday night averaged a 9.1 overnight rating, making it the the highest overnight rating for a World Cup match on ESPN or ESPN2, according to Nielsen. Last night’s match bested the previous record high overnight rating for a men’s USA World Cup match on ESPN or ESNPN2 — a 7.0 overnight in last week’s Team USA’s match against Ghana. The broadcast also ranks as the third-highest Men’s World Cup match of any round on any ESPN network – tied for ABC’s USA vs. Ghana round of 16 match in 2010, and behind ABC’s presentations of the 1994 World Cup Final featuring Brazil vs. Italy (12.8 overnight rating), and the 1994 USA-Brazil round of 16 match (10.4 rating) The top-10 metered markets: Washington, D.C. (13.3), Columbus, Ohio (12.6), New York (12.5), Boston (11.5), Hartford & New Haven (11.3), Providence (11.2), Atlanta (11.1), Baltimore (11.0), Norfolk (10.5), and Orlando (10.5). To date, the highest-rated markets on the ESPN Networks are: Washington D.C. (5.0), New York (4.3), San Francisco (4.1), Orlando (3.8), and Los Angeles (3.7). Final ratings are expected later this afternoon.

PREVIOUS: This is fast becoming the World Cup of last-ditch goals. Team USA looked like it was going to clinch the match against Portugal last night until Silvestre Varela’s header in the 95th minute tied the score at 2-2. While we wait for fast nationals from ESPN and numbers from Univision later today, the UK has chimed in with what it thought of the match and, interestingly, it seems it didn’t pay that much attention. On BBC One, the face-off was seen by an average of 3.06M viewers for a 34.4 share. The game was played at 11 PM which likely hurt it in the ratings. For the day, Belgium’s 1-0 win over Russia was the most-watched with 3.96M tuned to BBC One in the afternoon. That was worth a 30.8 share. On ITV, the 8 PM local time meet-up between South Korea and Algeria drew 3.52M and a 17 share.

Meanwhile, governing body FIFA said today that international viewership of this World Cup is the biggest in history for the Group Stage. Highs have been hit in Brazil, Japan, Germany, the UK, Argentina, France, the Netherlands, Croatia and Italy, FIFA says. The U.S., Australia and Canada have also seen increases. Indeed, we expect substantial numbers out of the States later today.

16 Comments

Nick • on Jun 23, 2014 7:18 am

That ratings high in the UK won’t last long :-)

Christophe • on Jun 23, 2014 8:01 am

Last week, ESPN had 11M viewers with a 7.0 rating. A 9.1 rating suggests a 30% increase from last week, could that also mean a 30% increase in total viewers? That would be 14.3M viewers. Add Univision and online streaming and it could reach a total 20+M viewers in the US alone. Not bad for a country that allegedly couldn’t care less about soccer…
Next Thursday’s game vs. Germany will probably score even bigger numbers since the US absolutely needs to win or draw to advance to the knockout stage.

#3 ? I don’t know. I think NFL, MLB and NBA will always be top three. I love football, soccer if you want, so I’m all for it becoming more popular here. My Chicago Fire get some solid turn outs on a good night !

Yeah, NHL is on the rise, not so much in ratings, but appeal. If the MLS can market itself better though….

Mr. futbol • on Jun 23, 2014 9:05 am

Where are all the haters? That’s well over 14 million people, a higher rating than some NFL football games and crushing baseball, hockey, and most nba games. Not bad for a “boring” sport. Keep living in the past and making tired jokes, haters! The ratings and the young demos don’t lie!

BD • on Jun 24, 2014 12:14 am

Don’t get too excited. Though the numbers can be encouraging to soccer fans in the U.S., and there is a definite greater than usual interest here, keep in mind that it is for a once every 4 years event, making it rarer than a World Series or NBA Finals. When regular season games get noticeable ratings, then you’ll have something. And as the U.S. gets a higher Latino population, that may one day happen.

If Nielsen and other ratings companies could figure out a way to count the millions of soccer fans who gather together to watch in pubs, cafes, public viewings, then maybe these viewership records would be accurate.